I’m heading to Hong Kong on a review trip to check out Korean Air, Cathay Pacific, and Finnair!
A Trip To Hong Kong On Korean Air, Cathay Pacific, Finnair
If the title looks familiar, it’s not because I copied anyone! 😉
For my own privacy, I tend to delay my trip reports more than One Mile At A Time and when he recently posted about his similar trip, I had already booked mine…I just had to laugh that we had the same idea. While our dates did not align in Hong Kong, this really is a great time of year to do review trips…planes are not full and award space is plentiful.
The entire trip was built around a first class award seat on Korean Air from Atlanta (ATL) to Seoul Incheon (ICN) on the 747-8 (I outlined the award standby process here). I thought about adding on a connection to Osaka (KIX) since Korean Air is using its new A350-900 on that route, but there were no business class award seats.
There also are currently no intra-Asia routes operated by the A380, so I booked a 777-300 business class flight from Seoul to Hong Kong (HKG) as part of the same award (80,000 miles). An extra four-hour flight for no extra miles is a sweet spot on the already-attractive Korean Air SKYPASS award chart.
I have not been to Hong Kong since before the pandemic and I’m very interested in seeing if the once fiercely semi-autonomous city-state feels more like the Mainland after years of eroding civil liberties.
For the return, I initially booked “Qatar Pacific” (an ex-Cathay Pacific 777-300 operated by Qatar Airways) to Doha for only 50K miles in first class….such a deal for a 9-hour flight. But I ended up cancelling it because I could not find decent award space to get me home from Doha.
Instead, I booked business class on Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong to Amsterdam on the A350-1000 (frankly, I prefer the A350 and its reverse herringbone seat to the 777, even with the new Aria Suite). It has been many years since I’ve flown Cathay Pacific business class…and nearly 15 since I’ve been on such a long Cathay Pacific flight.
Then from Amsterdam I’ll connect same-day to Helsinki and then to Los Angeles on a Finnair A350-900, featuring “no recline” business class. I’ve flown on Finnair’s A330 in business class, but not the A350 since the retrofit. My connection is very short in Helsinki, so there will be no time to enjoy the sauna in the Platinum Wing, but I’ve got a long layover in Amsterdam and plan to check out the oneworld lounge there.
I’m also excited to check out all the Cathay Pacific business lounges in Hong Kong. I’ll spend the night in Hong Kong at the Hyatt Centric in Victoria Harbour, a reasonably-priced hotel that has great views of the harbour.
CONCLUSION
Stay tuned as I share my first impressions of these flights…do let me know if there is anything in particular you would like me to focus on.
You’ll enjoy the oneworld lounge in AMS for one reason – they have a proper espresso maker staffed by a barista. I’ll admit, I’m not anywhere close to the coffee snob you and Lucky are, but the espresso with Bailey’s the barista conjured up hit the spot. (The lounge itself is also pretty nice, if a little small.)
That is the sole reason I decided to route through AMS instead of CDG! 😉
Sounds like a solid itinerary and jealous you get to try out F with CX albeit in QR’s livery/service and glad you’ll be able to to KE’s F in their 748 (if I could transfer the upgrade vouchers to F, I would have done so last year!)
Also, this is probably more appropriate for your other post on KE, you can also call KE to hold a booking for you. They’ll book your itinerary and will hold the payment (whether if it’s in miles or points) until later and you can even call a request to extend if the miles won’t come into your account in time.
Meow!!! Gruess gott! Mit der AfD oder? In general german expats cannot vote so I assume Heidi will not get a say in the election? Does she have dual citizenship? It is permitted (for) now.
Very jealous! I need to get up to Hong Kong soon.
Nothing even close using some of those sas points?
Received indescribable Customer Service on Cathay Pacific 777-300ER service ORD-HKG